4 ms·

Most of what you read on the news and social media would have you convinced that civilization is declining or collapsing. If you actually measure the world, ho

Most of what you read on the news and social media would have you convinced that civilization is declining or collapsing. If you actually measure the world, however, then by almost any measure things are better now than they have been in the past (two notable exceptions are climate change and democracy vs autocracy). What does this mean? Why the difference between the measurable state of the world and the doomer discourse? I think its rooted in two things. The first reason is that both social media and news media are monetized by your attention, and attention is far higher when things are presented as terrible than when things are presented as good. Bad news goes viral far better than good news. The second reason is that being highly online is correlated with depression. The people who are most likely to be spending their time posting online are more likely to be depressed and lose perspective about the world around them. What's the solution? I don't know for sure but I think a good first step is to limit the time you spend consuming news media and social media, and instead spend time offline living life. What's the point of a constant stream of information if it leads to inaccurate perceptions of the world?

lisper 4y ago
> two notable exceptions are climate change and democracy vs autocracy "Notable" is quite the understatement IMHO.
cableshaft 4y ago
> If you actually measure the world, however, then by almost any measure things are better now than they have been in the past (two notable exceptions are climate change and democracy vs autocracy). Or US life expectancy, or healthcare/childcare/university costs (in the US), or homicides (in the US), or suicides, or population growth (arguably a good thing for climate change, but most people aren't choosing to put off kids because they care about overpopulation), or topsoil availability, or fresh water availability (climate change contributes but we're also using way too much), or garbage in the ocean, or the decimation of life in the ocean (which climate change isn't helping but it's more from overfishing), etc etc etc. That's just off the top of my head, and I'm sure I can hunt down a lot more. And it's super dependent on where you live too. Try telling Ukrainians, Sri Lankans, Syrians, Yemenis, Lebanese, etc. if they're better off now than they were in the past.
- _dw7s 4y ago
  The whole better off trope has been popularized by people like Hans Rosling in books like Factfulness. You can read reviews from experts to figure out what's wrong with it. But I've often seen these arguments in the context of 'everything is going great, there's nothing to worry about' with arguments such as 'we had the most people lifted out of poverty ever in history'. In my view that's just capitalist koolaid to keep the middle class workers content, optimistic and most importantly, compacent. 'Don't look up' style. All these arguments explicitly ignore the many elephants in the room, like the global fucking pandemic we've been mishandling for the past two years or the climate disaster which is already making itself felt by westerners. The outcome is actually pretty grim if you read between the lines. You don't have to monitor the news or social media to figure out that we're not in the best place right now when it comes to a lot of global metrics. We can pick and chose a couple and make ourselves feel good and go about our business being productive little bees in the capitalist machine, but we're just fooling ourselves. My personal assessment is that the effects of climate change will zero out a lot of those measures for which we're doing better than our forefathers.
  - andrewmutz 4y ago
    > The whole better off trope has been popularized by people like Hans Rosling in books like Factfulness Hans Rosling is right. And the success of the world does not mean we shouldn't work to improve it. It means we shouldn't be doomers and think the world is falling apart. Max Roser said it well with "The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better." https://ourworldindata.org/much-better-awful-can-be-better https://ourworldindata.org/much-better-awful-can-be-better
    - decebalus1 4y ago
      > the success of the world Which part of the world is succeeding? What does that actually mean? 'Success of the world' is such an empty statement. What did it succeed at? Destroying our habitat? > does not mean we shouldn't work to improve it Most of the more brilliant minds in the current industrialized world are working on making more money for someone (themselves or others). Who's working on actually improving it? And improve it how? By making the world a better place 'through minimal message oriented transport layers'? > It means we shouldn't be doomers and think the world is falling apart Nobody is saying one should be a doomer or whatever. Doomer implies losing all hope. What I'm advocating is losing hope for the current system, not for the world.
thrown_22 4y ago
That was true in 2010. In 2020 things are getting worse. Is it a blip? Maybe. But the first measured decline in life expectancy was measured in 2015, and there have been declines in half the years since then.
jdkee 4y ago
This video on the deaths in WWII will put things into perspective. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKPFT-RioU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKPFT-RioU
adrianN 4y ago
Most measures we typically see are economic measures. They are indeed going up: fewer people life in poverty, and all dependent variables like lifespan and education improve too. However, economic growth is currently tied to exploiting finite resources with ever increasing speed. Consequently, all measures that look at natural resources give rise to increasing existential angst: The oceans are empty, biodiversity is crashing; the climate is messed up, likely beyond the point where we can prevent catastrophic warming; topsoil is eroding at an amazing rate, aquifers are depleting; plastics, and other "forever chemicals" keep accumulating with as of yet mostly unknown effects. So while the economy keeps growing, it looks like we're just increasing the speed at which we'll hit the wall.
LeanderK 4y ago
> democracy vs autocracy Is this really true? Some democracies are under pressure (USA for example), but for example easter europe wasn't a democracy not so long ago. I don't really know what's going on in Africa. How many democracies are developing there vs backsliding?
specialist 4y ago
Equilibrium is hard to maintain in complex adaptive systems. Butterfly effect, chaos theory, Gaia Hypothesis, and all that. Our awareness of the potential for collapse is absolutely crucial. We have agency. We can nudge our systems. Postpone catastrophic outcomes for another day. Humanity will always be kicking the can down the road. There is no stable state. -- I don't know what to do or say about fatigue, burnout, and apathy due to chronic doomsaying. For my part, I've pulled back. No corporate media. No politics with friends and family. Started journalling. Prioritized my life and try to stick to the plan. Sometimes successfully.

lisper 4y ago

> two notable exceptions are climate change and democracy vs autocracy "Notable" is quite the understatement IMHO.

cableshaft 4y ago

> If you actually measure the world, however, then by almost any measure things are better now than they have been in the past (two notable exceptions are climate change and democracy vs autocracy). Or US life expectancy, or healthcare/childcare/university costs (in the US), or homicides (in the US), or suicides, or population growth (arguably a good thing for climate change, but most people aren't choosing to put off kids because they care about overpopulation), or topsoil availability, or fresh water availability (climate change contributes but we're also using way too much), or garbage in the ocean, or the decimation of life in the ocean (which climate change isn't helping but it's more from overfishing), etc etc etc. That's just off the top of my head, and I'm sure I can hunt down a lot more. And it's super dependent on where you live too. Try telling Ukrainians, Sri Lankans, Syrians, Yemenis, Lebanese, etc. if they're better off now than they were in the past.

_dw7s 4y ago
The whole better off trope has been popularized by people like Hans Rosling in books like Factfulness. You can read reviews from experts to figure out what's wrong with it. But I've often seen these arguments in the context of 'everything is going great, there's nothing to worry about' with arguments such as 'we had the most people lifted out of poverty ever in history'. In my view that's just capitalist koolaid to keep the middle class workers content, optimistic and most importantly, compacent. 'Don't look up' style. All these arguments explicitly ignore the many elephants in the room, like the global fucking pandemic we've been mishandling for the past two years or the climate disaster which is already making itself felt by westerners. The outcome is actually pretty grim if you read between the lines. You don't have to monitor the news or social media to figure out that we're not in the best place right now when it comes to a lot of global metrics. We can pick and chose a couple and make ourselves feel good and go about our business being productive little bees in the capitalist machine, but we're just fooling ourselves. My personal assessment is that the effects of climate change will zero out a lot of those measures for which we're doing better than our forefathers.
- andrewmutz 4y ago
  > The whole better off trope has been popularized by people like Hans Rosling in books like Factfulness Hans Rosling is right. And the success of the world does not mean we shouldn't work to improve it. It means we shouldn't be doomers and think the world is falling apart. Max Roser said it well with "The world is awful. The world is much better. The world can be much better." https://ourworldindata.org/much-better-awful-can-be-better https://ourworldindata.org/much-better-awful-can-be-better
  - decebalus1 4y ago
    > the success of the world Which part of the world is succeeding? What does that actually mean? 'Success of the world' is such an empty statement. What did it succeed at? Destroying our habitat? > does not mean we shouldn't work to improve it Most of the more brilliant minds in the current industrialized world are working on making more money for someone (themselves or others). Who's working on actually improving it? And improve it how? By making the world a better place 'through minimal message oriented transport layers'? > It means we shouldn't be doomers and think the world is falling apart Nobody is saying one should be a doomer or whatever. Doomer implies losing all hope. What I'm advocating is losing hope for the current system, not for the world.

thrown_22 4y ago

That was true in 2010. In 2020 things are getting worse. Is it a blip? Maybe. But the first measured decline in life expectancy was measured in 2015, and there have been declines in half the years since then.

jdkee 4y ago

This video on the deaths in WWII will put things into perspective. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKPFT-RioU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwKPFT-RioU

adrianN 4y ago

Most measures we typically see are economic measures. They are indeed going up: fewer people life in poverty, and all dependent variables like lifespan and education improve too. However, economic growth is currently tied to exploiting finite resources with ever increasing speed. Consequently, all measures that look at natural resources give rise to increasing existential angst: The oceans are empty, biodiversity is crashing; the climate is messed up, likely beyond the point where we can prevent catastrophic warming; topsoil is eroding at an amazing rate, aquifers are depleting; plastics, and other "forever chemicals" keep accumulating with as of yet mostly unknown effects. So while the economy keeps growing, it looks like we're just increasing the speed at which we'll hit the wall.

LeanderK 4y ago

> democracy vs autocracy Is this really true? Some democracies are under pressure (USA for example), but for example easter europe wasn't a democracy not so long ago. I don't really know what's going on in Africa. How many democracies are developing there vs backsliding?

specialist 4y ago

Equilibrium is hard to maintain in complex adaptive systems. Butterfly effect, chaos theory, Gaia Hypothesis, and all that. Our awareness of the potential for collapse is absolutely crucial. We have agency. We can nudge our systems. Postpone catastrophic outcomes for another day. Humanity will always be kicking the can down the road. There is no stable state. -- I don't know what to do or say about fatigue, burnout, and apathy due to chronic doomsaying. For my part, I've pulled back. No corporate media. No politics with friends and family. Started journalling. Prioritized my life and try to stick to the plan. Sometimes successfully.